ALUMNI NEWS
Theatre Grads Step into Broadway Spotlight
The most recent New York theatre season had a definite Frostburg flavor.
As New York Theatre reopened after a year-and-a-half pandemic-enforced shutdown, three graduates of the FSU Department of Theatre and Dance stepped into the spotlight. FSU alums Keenan Scott II ’09, Jessica Frances Dukes and Shahzeb Hussain ’17 had some groundbreaking and unique roles in the New York theatre scene.
“It’s a wonderful feeling to watch FSU Theatre alums reach the potential we always knew they had,” said Nicole Mattis, chair of the FSU Department of Theatre and Dance. “They are at the top of their games and now we get to learn from them.”
Playwright Scott made headlines with his Broadway-debut play Thoughts of a Colored Man at the John Golden Theatre. Heralded by critics as “captivating and piercing” (Broadway News) and “the most important play of the 21st century” (Amsterdam News), Scott wrote the first draft and workshopped the play while he was a student on the FSU campus. The story centers on a day in the lives of seven Black men and blends spoken word, slam poetry, rhythm and humor. The play closed its limited-engagement run in December.
Three blocks south at the American Airlines Theatre on 42nd Street, Dukes (Netflix’s Ozark and Marvel’s Jessica Jones) starred as Millie Davis in a revival of Alice Childress’s play Trouble in Mind. No stranger to the stage, Dukes received an Obie Award for her performance in Playwrights Horizon’s BootyCandy and was nominated for a Drama League Award and won an Audelco Award for playing the title character in By the Way, Meet Vera Stark at Signature Theatre in Arlington, Va., Trouble in Mind ended its run Jan. 9.
Off-Broadway at the SoHo Playhouse, Hussain played the roles of Curry and the Assistant Stage Manager in the immersive theatre experience Tammany Hall. The interactive show takes audiences back to election night of Nov. 5, 1929, giving a behind-the-scenes look at the political organization Tammany Hall, which controlled the New York Democratic Party, and the scandalous night when the corrupt political machine came crashing down. Hussain previously starred in the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company’s presentation of Romeo and Juliet.
